Editorial: 9/11 victims must never be forgotten

View full sizeAssociated Press file | Amy SancettaThe south tower of the World Trade Center begins to collapse following a terrorist attack on the New York landmark Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001.

EÂleven years after 8:46 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001 and the victims keep coming.

First of course are the 3,000 people who died in the hijackings and subsequent crashes of American Airlines Flight 11, United Airlines Flight 175, American Airlines Flight 77 and United Airlines Flight 93.

Then there are all the friends, families and loved ones of all those people plus the millions in New York, Washington and the hallowed ground in Shanksville Pennsylvania who will never quite be able to celebrate an anniversary, attend a wedding, witness a birth, or even look in the sky the same way again without thinking of everything that has been lost.

Then there are the thousands of soldiers and their families in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 11 years and straight through today who keep finding themselves in harm’s way in their ongoing efforts to make sure that terrorist attacks on American soil remain in the history books and not on the front pages.

And still, the victims come. Most recently in the form of the Sept. 11 victims’ compensation fund which has been given the impossible task of evenhandedly distributing $2.7 billion to ground zero responders and others who became ill after being exposed to dust and ash from the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center.

As if such compensation could ever be made.

The fund, which Congress originally established in 2001, gave $6 billion to the families of victims and $1 billion to the injured. When it closed in 2003, however, those whose injuries materialized years later were left without compensation. That group included workers and volunteers, many suffering from chronic respiratory problems and cancers after being exposed to clouds of pulverized building materials at the site.

How more victims of 9/11 will there be? How can they ever be made whole?

Osama bin Laden and the human guided missiles he launched that day are gone, but for many Americans the pain and anguish of 9/11/01 and those following remain.

Many memorials have been erected to remember the 9/11 victims. Still more are to come. Today, as on every anniversary of 9/11 in New York City the names of the victims who died are read out against a background of somber music. The president will ask Americans to observe a moment of silence and many Americans will fill that silence with personal remembrances and prayers.

So many victims, so many questions. But one answer seems more compelling than ever.